Page 43 - Charnock alchemical letter

in short space their elixirs too
doting their creditors that they be fain
to let them go, but over in vain
they work so long till at the last
they be again in prison cast
if any ask them why they be not rich
they say they can make, fine gold often
but he they say, may surely swim in ditch
which is holden up, but the chin
we have no stock, therefore we may not win
which and we had we would soon work
I now finish, Westminster kirk.

The Oxford Man

By these tales told it cometh to my remembrance how Chaucer in his
Canon Yeoman’s Tale18 doth paint out these kind of philosophers very
trimly and at large, reproving the deceit which some of them did use.

Master Charnock

All these from the beginning of my tale hitherto, be they who the
philosophers do name the rich Alchemists, who do put in practice the
easy short and plain way, with recipe and accipe, and do believe those
short conclusions, whereby they will multiply more gold in a day when
their science is brought to pass, than we be able to augment by our work
in a whole year.

And I for my part within this fifteen years was in as great a dotage as any
of these, and mused with myself often times wherein I should attain unto
by this rich science of Alchemy. And truly in such or the like mind, have
been in times past many hundreds, and at this day without number. Yea
all the philosophers which ever were have had the like minds, and have
wrought a wrong way before true practice attained, even as most of their
books make mention, but specially Geber,19 who did think by his cookery
fires a long time, that he should have fixed mercury by force within forty
days, and then to have exuberate him within twenty-one days more, and
this to be the perfect elixir which should have converted any kind of
metal into pure gold, and to multiply the same above number, as one
upon ten and ten upon a hundred in a short time. And I warrant you he
meant in his mind with the superabundance of gold which he should

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